Jean-Jacques Annaud’s The Name of the Rose is a flawed attempt to adapt Umberto Eco’s highly convoluted medieval bestseller for the screen, necessarily excising much of the esoterica that made the book so compelling. Still, what’s left is a riveting whodunit set in a grimly and grimily realistic 14th-century Benedictine monastery populated by a parade of grotesque characters, all of whom spend their time lurking in dark places or scuttling, half-unseen, in the omnipresent gloom. A series of mysterious and gruesome deaths are somehow tied up with the unwelcome attention of the Inquisition, sent to root out suspected heretical behavior among the monastic scribes whose lives are dedicated to transcribing ancient manuscripts for their famous library, access to which is prevented by an ingenious maze-like layout.

Enter Sean Connery as investigator-monk William of Baskerville (the Sherlock Holmes connection made explicit in his name) and his naive young assistant Adso (a youthful Christian Slater). The Grand Inquisitor Bernado Gui (F. Murray Abraham) suspects devilry; but William and Adso, using Holmesian forensic techniques, uncover a much more human cause: the secrets of the library are being protected at a terrible cost. A fine international cast and the splendidly evocative location compensate for a screenplay that struggles to present Eco’s multifaceted story even partially intact; Annaud’s idiosyncratic direction complements the sinister, unsettling aura of the tale ideally.

Hand Made Wood Tankards

2017 EPIC AWARD WINNER FOR SCIENCE FICTION

A catastrophic pandemic ravages the globe, reducing the human population to extinction levels.

An arrogant bookworm, a doomsday prepper, a brilliant scientist, and a journal-keeping poet are among those who survive the disease that annihilated almost everyone else on the planet.

Not dying was the easy part.

Now, a year later, they navigate a bleak world…one without technology, without modern medicine, and without law and order. They must unify their diverse strengths not only to rebuild civilization, but to battle those who would use brutality to forge empires.

The plague cleansed the world of mediocrity. The survivors possess the intellect and vision to save humankind.

Random Renaissance Era Tidbits:

Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Michelangelo had been working on Julius' magnificent tomb; unfortunately, the money for that project ran out and the pope pulled him off that project (which was never completed) to do the Sistine Ceiling. Michelangelo, who considered himself a sculptor, not a painter, was reluctant to do the project.

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